Playing God
by chocolateowl
Summary: "You can't play God all the time, Tony." "I have to- I can't lose him." "He's still alive. And he's fine now." "It's just, it could happen again at anytime, and… I can't-"


Sometimes, the world could be pretty blind.

Yes, the Avengers might be a group of superheroes, and sure, they might be able to saunter around in spandex and suits of armor protecting the earth. But every time Natasha looked at the group of ragtag heroes, all she could see was a bunch of humans. Or robot, but that was a special case.

They might be smarter, faster, stronger than most ordinary people, but it was still _so_ easy to make them bleed.

She had learnt the game far too well when she was younger, in a room dripping with red, until she was brainwashed into thinking wrong was right, murder was life, and everyone was someone to be feared.

So she was the one who actually saw the hidden things that they all tried to hide.

She saw a scared young boy dressed in a skin-tight suit of red and blue, taking up the mantle of a hero because the world called for one. At daytime, he was going through the motions of life, taking tests and writing down notes, while at night, he was hissing in pain while wrapping his arm in a bloody bandage.

She saw a tired man who didn't fit in with the modern world, struggling to cope in a society he never grew up in. He still couldn't make himself leave any leftover food on the table, and there was no one for him to turn to, because everyone he loved in the past was dead.

She saw a scientist who never liked to acknowledge his own anger, unwilling to open up because of the green beast that always lurked within him. He never allowed himself to be angry because he was simply afraid, afraid of the destruction he could do if he let a hint of frustration slip past his barriers.

She saw a god, a robot, a witch, an archer, and none of them could ever fit in with the real world, so they band together to create a group of heroes, broken around the edges, but it was the only place where they weren't looked upon as monsters.

Because in the end, they were all monsters. Monsters that learnt how to play the rules of the game, that learnt how to build walls until it looked like that they were partially sane, helpful even. But that was what all humans were, in the end.

The most human one of them all hid himself in a suit of armor, playing the wolf dressed up as a sheep. He pretended to control the pieces in the game of life, trying to ignore the fact that he was slipping further into the cycle of violence and guilt.

And then he tried to cover up the evidence with a flashy smile and expensive sunglasses, and it did work, to a certain extent. But he'd forgotten that he lived with the Black Widow, and she didn't miss a lot of things.

Natasha saw him obsess over Pepper when she was busy taking care of investments with her back turned. She saw him flipping through the pages of army notes because Rhodey was marching into the next battle, and she saw him clap Happy on the back like each time he said goodbye might be the last one.

And at night, when she couldn't sleep, and she tiptoed downstairs for a cup of hot chocolate, she saw Tony sleeping on the couch murmuring something about Jarvis and a Yinsen.

But in the morning, when she asked, he just laughed her off with a pair of sunglasses in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other before disappearing into his lab like everything was alright and there was nothing to worry about.

He tried to pretend that he couldn't bleed. But he bled the most out of all of them.

* * *

Natasha was trying to take a nap, but it was impossible to when the TV was blaring so loudly, and everyone was scrunched together on a couch, eating donuts. Except Wanda, who was eating a bowl of watermelons for some weird reason.

Replacing sugar with a bowl of fruit? Even Natasha couldn't understand why she would do that.

Steve was munching down all the donuts with red, white, and blue sprinkles, until Tony decided to steal one. And of course, a catfight had to ensue because of Tony's "grievance," and pillows were flying all over the place, and Natasha was _still_ trying to get some sleep, but she couldn't because of the two, immature brats.

She was about to storm out of the room, because her beauty sleep was way too important to be disturbed, when something in the news caught her attention.

"-ouple hours ago, a drunk driver t-bones a bus filled with students of the Midtown School of Science and Technology. Luckily, no one was killed, but a couple of students were injured."

A shaky video of the bus popped up on the screen, showing the footage of a couple of kids being carried away on stretchers. One of them had a mop of brown hair, and a face that seemed oddly famili-

Her heart dropped as she connected the dots, and she turned away from the screen to look at Tony, who was staring at the screen with a horrified look on his face, pillow limp in his hand.

The pillows stopped flying immediately as everyone turned toward the TV screen, confused.

Steve glanced at Tony's expression, and he must have saw something there because his own face creased into a worried frown.

"Are you okay?"

Tony didn't respond, eyes still on the screen.

Clint, who was sprawled on the couch next to Natasha, looked at her confusedly. "What's going on?"

Natasha ignored him, and reached her hand out to Tony, but he just pushed her hand away and strolled out of the room, pressing a pair of sunglasses on his face.

The news was still playing in the background, and everyone was oddly silent, staring at spot where Tony was a few minutes ago. Bruce turned to Natasha, and asked quietly, "What the hell was that?"

Surprisingly, it was Vision who answered his question.

"It's Spiderman."

He added "One of the kids who was injured," when Bruce raised an eyebrow toward him.

Now Wanda looked up at Vision, absentmindedly summoning red trails of magic that swirled around her fingers. "Spiderman's still in _high school_?"

Vision shrugged, glancing at the screen again. "I scanned him during the... fight, and they both were a match in the databases."

Steve ran a hand through his hair, blowing a breath of air out in frustration, "Tony recruited a kid that young? That's the most… idiotic thing I've ever heard him do, and he's done a lot of stupid things before."

So they really didn't notice?

Someone placed a hand on Natasha's shoulder, startling her, and she punched the person _hard_ without a second thought.

"Shit, Nat, I already told you that you've got a mean right hook. No need to prove it to me again."

She looked around, and it was Clint, who was clutching his face where an angry bruise was beginning to form.

She hissed back grumpily, "You startled me."

Clint snorted, but continued. "Did you know? About the kid?"

He gestured to the TV screen with his free hand. After a pause, she nodded, because there wasn't really a use in lying at this point. They should have all known about him anyways.

"It was obvious. The attitude, the fact that he visited before, and his voice..."

She trailed off when everyone looked at her blankly.

"Are you really saying that you guys haven't noticed the kid coming in for the past week?"

Thor looked up at the ceiling awkwardly, twirling his hammer around.

Natasha snorted, and shook her head in exasperation. "Of course."

* * *

For the next couple of weeks, Tony's attitude was thrown way out of whack.

At first, the team tried to scold him for recruiting a fourteen-year old kid to a full-on, superhuman fight, but after they got no response back, Natasha started to worry.

He was talking a lot less, and it had gone to the point where Steve offered him one of his precious donuts in hopes that he would cheer up, because it was like he was living as a ghost. He was still doing the repairs, and he was still dressing up as Ironman, but it was like... he wasn't really there.

No snarky comment, no sarcastic jibe. He was in the kitchen for a couple of minutes to get his coffee, and that was basically it before he returned back to his lab to work on whatever he was doing.

Even the kid was worried. When he visited a couple of days ago, he looked absolutely fine, probably because of his super-fast healing abilities, but when he walked out of the lab downstairs, he was pressing his lips together worriedly.

He spotted Natasha looking over at him, and looked around cautiously, before hopping over to her.

"Uh… you're the Black Widow person, right?"

She looked at him questioningly, and he gave a nervous laugh, shifting awkwardly.

"Yea, of course you are. Uh, could you do me a favor?"

She responded, raising an eyebrow, "What do you want?"

"Could you just watch over Mister Stark? He's kind of acting really weirdly, and I'm out for the rest of the week for a Decathlon tournament, so I can't bother him about it."

He looked up at her hopefully, and she couldn't help but nod at him.

So when Natasha finally decided to visit him downstairs, he was in pitch-black darkness, illuminated only by the soft-blue glow of his reactor. He was fiddling with the screens plastered on the walls all around him, absentmindedly tapping a beat on the ground with his foot.

Without looking up, he tapped something on the screen, before waving her over.

"Hey Nat. You got something for me?"

Natasha sighed, but she walked over to slide him a steaming cup of coffee. He nodded his thanks, and took a long sip from it, wincing from the heat.

"What's up?"

Natasha didn't respond, but instead looked at the screens that Tony was gazing at.

All of them were videos of a brown-haired boy, and by the looks of it, filmed by security cameras around the school. The kid was hanging out with another guy and a girl, and all of them were laughing together like they've just had some hilarious inside joke that they shared with each other.

Natasha sighed, and turned to Tony.

"You can't keep on doing this, you know?"

Tony shrugged before tapping another hologram. "I can do whatever I want to do."

The shadows under his eyes seemed so much darker than before, and he looked unbearably tired compared to the laughing kids flickering on the wall.

She frowned, and gestured to the screens on the wall. "You know what I mean."

"It's for the kid's protection."

She watched him spin around in his seat to tinker with something else before he muttered, "You don't have to mother over me, you know."

He still wasn't looking at her, and her annoyance bubbled over, because he wasn't _listening_.

She slapped her hand in front of Tony with a bang, and bent over to look at Tony in the eye, growling, "You can't play God all the time, Tony."

Tony suddenly pushed back his chair, and stood up, snarling back, "What if I fucking want to?"

Natasha couldn't help but jump backwards as Tony took a step closer, eyes darkening.

He spat out, "If I don't play God, then who else will?"

He started pacing around the room, wringing his hands behind his back. "I have to- I can't lose him."

He looked over to Natasha, who was lingering by the table, before squeezing his eyes shut, and sinking to the floor.

"I could have lost him in the bus, and there was absolutely nothing I could have done to stop it."

"He's still alive. And he's fine now."

He shook his head, before putting a hand to his forehead, his eyes still shut tightly.

"It's not… that."

He opened his eyes, and tilted his head to the ceiling. A pause.

"It's just, it could happen again at anytime, and… I can't-"

Natasha watched the agitated way his fingers tap out a beat against the floor, and responded gently, "You can't control everything."

He just looked back at her, a resigned expression on his face. "I have to."

She watched him try to calm down for a few minutes longer, before she brushed past him and knelt down. In a split second decision, she quickly wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

He stiffened in surprise.

"Let the kid live his life. Not everything revolves around you."

She let go, and stepped backwards, smiling sadly, "Not everything's your fault either."

Then she walked outside, hearing Tony's silence behind her.

* * *

 **This idea just popped randomly in my head, and I was like yolo, whatever, going to write about it. It kinda came about when I watched a random clip today, and it had Natasha asking Tony if he was okay, so I decided to write it in her perspective, because why not? New ideas, woo.**

 **Anyways, I hope you guys like it!**


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